Christian Responses to the Challenge of Atheism

The New Atheists are convinced that good thinking means disbelief in God and that their leaders are models of good reasoning. Richard Dawkins heads up a “Foundation for Reason and Science.” Sam Harris is founder and chairman of “Project Reason.” The American Atheists define atheism as “the mental attitude which unreservedly accepts the supremacy of reason . . .” John Loftus tells us “Faith and Reason are Mutually Exclusive Opposites.” And the primacy of reasoned knowledge was supposed to be the point of their March 24, 2012 “Reason Rally.”

They are quite mistaken.

They are wrong because their claims to good reasoning do not match the evidence of their performance. Dawkins’ book The God Delusion is rife with logical fallacies and demonstrably anti-scientific prejudice. Sam Harris devoted most of a recent debate to avoiding logic, advancing an argument based on emotional appeals instead. John Loftus says that his “Outsider Test for Faith” shows that belief is irrational, when his test actually demonstrates the opposite.

They are also wrong because Christianity is built on a foundation of evidence and thought. The Bible is a record of what God has done. It tells us through and through to see what he has done, and to trust him based on what we know to be true of him. Jesus requires his followers to love God with all of their minds. The Apostle Paul reasoned in the synagogues and with the Greek philosophers. Down through history, many of the world’s greatest thinkers have been Christians. That’s still true today.

And they are mistaken in not seeing how Christianity leads people to treat each other reasonably. Sure, there have been exceptions, but on the whole Christianity has been the world’s greatest force for freedom, peace, human rights, and of course the highest good of all: knowledge of God.

This is not the party line. Even Christians may not know this is true. If any of this seems surprising to you, then it’s time for you to discover True Reason.